Microsoft to move out of the education market?

[Areku]

we had several very bad experiences with cloud services, (mail server unavailable for 11 days anyone?, MIS server disappearing for a WEEK), we brought back everything in house. and yes, this was a LARGE provider.

 

What ever solution we go for, be it increase costs, or alternate methods, it will be all in house, we even offer our own "cloud" services, but its all hosted on our EQ, with our man power, and our connections, they are not offering something we as a school don't already offer our users.

 

Whilst i do get and understand these offerings will attract smaller schools, i don't see MS (or other cloud providers) being used here as a replacement. An Additional service however maybe.

[CyberNerd]

Both Google and Microsoft copied Amazon if anything. General consensus as I've always read it re: cloud providers for IaaS \ PaaS is Amazon top, MS reasonably close 2nd and all others (Google included) further behind.

 

Could you find some links for this because much of research I did found Google cheaper and better performing!

https://www.upguard.com/articles/cloud-service-provider-roundup-the-best-of-the-best

 

Don't lump everyone in the "doesn't want to learn Linux" box - we're quite happy with the stuff we run on CentOS but again some products are better suited for that work than others. Also third party solutions and support will affect the choice of what underlying OS is used.

 

It wasn't meant to be a slur, don't think the pricing will have much impact: those who can will change and the others will just ask for a larger budget.

[Ephelyon]

It certainly will be interesting in the future, the cost of broadband is coming down now making a 100mb leased line accessible to primary schools. Will it be a case of leased line costs reducing allowing faster connections and technology improving that use less bandwidth? I understand that may not all happen in the next couple of years, but it is starting to happen.

 

Remember it's not just the bandwidth, it's also the latency - and reducing that much further would require a step-change in the way connectivity is delivered. Could we actually get latency down to similar levels to an internal network? I'll believe that when I see it!

Edited April 28, 2016 by Ephelyon

[CyberNerd]

Remember it's not just the bandwidth, it's the latency - and reducing that much further would require a step-change in the way connectivity is delivered. Could we actually get latency down to similar levels to an internal network? I'll believe that when I see it!

 

It's only an issue with certain protocols. Like I said, I was doing this on dialup connections. Latency to our (google based) VPN is better than DSL, but obviously not as good as LAN.

64 bytes from 172.16.0.8: icmp_seq=30 ttl=127 time=11.3 ms

64 bytes from 172.16.0.8: icmp_seq=31 ttl=127 time=11.3 ms

64 bytes from 172.16.0.8: icmp_seq=32 ttl=127 time=11.2 ms

64 bytes from 172.16.0.8: icmp_seq=33 ttl=127 time=11.3 ms

64 bytes from 172.16.0.8: icmp_seq=34 ttl=127 time=11.4 ms

[localzuk]

Remember it's not just the bandwidth, it's also the latency - and reducing that much further would require a step-change in the way connectivity is delivered. Could we actually get latency down to similar levels to an internal network? I'll believe that when I see it!

 

Some connectivity providers have bit the bullet and put in place peering arrangements with various cloud providers (or you can even pay for this yourself with them). So, latency is massively reduced via the ISP's MPLS/VPLS/whatever.

[gshaw]

Could you find some links for this because much of research I did found Google cheaper and better performing!

https://www.upguard.com/articles/cloud-service-provider-roundup-the-best-of-the-best

The usual Gartner & co, I guess ultimately picking on as the "best" ends up being the same as if you argue which is better of BMW vs Audi, Android vs iOS and so on. Ask the question and get many versions of the same answer!

 

It wasn't meant to be a slur, don't think the pricing will have much impact: those who can will change and the others will just ask for a larger budget.

Fair do's Re: pricing perhaps that may be the case, but for those already considering alternatives this just provides another shoot-yourself-in-the-foot moment for MS at a time when there's more competition than ever in the market for ever-shrinking budgets.

[mavhc]

Another example of workload I wouldn't want in the cloud for the same reason is Impero (or similar). When you monitor screens (which of course you can do in bulk), the data goes from the workstation to the server and then back to you (they have confirmed this).

 

That's not true, quite easy to see with Resource Manager that each console makes a direct connection to each client for live video screen monitoring, it's just VNC in the background I think.

[Ephelyon]

That's funny as that's what they themselves said... I'll check that out later on.

@CyberNerd, agreed that a lot of it depends on protocols, but then of course that's out of our hands. Ping latency is helpful but can be misleading when trying to measure the performance of other things - multicasting for example.

 

Either way, while we could debate the performance of various people's Internet connections and other measures by providers, I think the main point is that we're involving the wider interwebs in things they don't need to be involved in. Why would you send data all around the houses when it only needs to go from one place to another internally? It's a very inefficient process if there is no tangible benefit and that should be avoided out of principle if nothing else.

 

If everyone started doing this with all their workloads the bandwidth use, however small, would begin to add up (thinking at the pipeline level here, not just for individual connections). That means ISPs would eventually have to expand their capacity, which requires a cost (which will be passed on to customers) that ultimately might not have been required if people didn't insist on chucking things into the cloud by default.

 

The cloud should be used where it offers a clear benefit in terms of both functionality and cost - nowhere else. The reason we have nothing cloud-based here is because I've yet to see a situation where that would be the case for us.

[pcstru]

The cloud should be used where it offers a clear benefit in terms of both functionality and cost - nowhere else.

You might just reduce that to X should be used where it offers some benefit. It might be functionality OR cost OR it might even be some other constraint - perhaps staff skills, external support or just the supply of a product (this thread arises basically because M$ will start to motivate us using several of those constraints to push us along the path they want us to take).

[Cache]

It certainly will be interesting in the future, the cost of broadband is coming down now making a 100mb leased line accessible to primary schools. Will it be a case of leased line costs reducing allowing faster connections and technology improving that use less bandwidth? I understand that may not all happen in the next couple of years, but it is starting to happen.

 

And yet for us to get a 100mb leased line instead of our RBC connection would cost us in the region of £20k, so if the RBC goes I'm stuffed and we're a secondary school.

 

The last thing I wanted to know from the presentation was with the increase in cost for the OVS-ES agreement and you requiring to licence Office for all your staff to get the Office 365 Pro Plus benefit for Staff/Students, where is the saving coming from moving to the cloud? That's a 19% price increase in my head unless I am missing an obvious trick.

[mavhc]

There are advantages to isolating machines locally, not going to get a lan based virus if everything is cloudy. On the other hand, bandwidth savings to be had if cloud apps are LAN aware, like dropbox is.

 

Does amuse me that my computer has calibre download rss feeds, convert them to mobi, upload to gmail to email to amazon, which sends them to my kindle sitting next to the computer. Avoids having to plug in a usb cable though.

[psydii]

If the end-user side of an app hasn't been designed to run over a 'high' latency, lossy, slow connections, then it is not a 'Cloud' app, even if the server is running on AWS/Azure/GoogelAppEngine.

 

In the push to the cloud many legacy systems are going to be displaced, and many that try to transition without re-engineering will cause pain, and be abandoned.

 

For us, the big problem is the Creative Cloud suite. - it generates huge files. We often see 1Gb/sec LAN links saturated (think 60 kids saving 300MB files at the end of the lesson!) There is no GoogleApps/Office365 equivalent toolset from Adobe. Local file servers will be here for some time yet, until we can afford to give each of the kiddies a Surface Pro 4!

 

 

On the topic of ISP bandwidth: In 'proper' cloud solutions, most of the data traditionally seen in a LAN would be kept within the Cloud providers' networks. Only the occasional upload and download of files would traverse ISP links. Most of the big players (RM, JANET, EasyNet/Sky, TrustNET/Virgin etc) have dedicated multiple interconnects (in some cases multiple 40GB/sec) with the Cloud providers. These interconnects are already co-lo'd and would literally be the cost of the port and cable for the ISP - the cloud provider would 'give away' their side of the interconnect as to do anything else would hurt their business. I'm not sure that the ISPs would really have any challenge addressing the increase. Besides, actual work data vs existing YouTube videos? The load from work is almost negligible.

Edited April 28, 2016 by psydii

[zag]

And yet for us to get a 100mb leased line instead of our RBC connection would cost us in the region of £20k, so if the RBC goes I'm stuffed and we're a secondary school.

 

Should be about 7k these days for a 100mbit leased line through BT. Prices have dropped through the floor over the last 2 years.

 

I'd say if anyone is still complaining about their connectivity in 2016 then they really need to look at their provision. We moved away from the SEGFL 7 years ago now and its one of the best things I ever did.

[localzuk]

Should be about 7k these days for a 100mbit leased line through BT. Prices have dropped through the floor over the last 2 years.

 

I'd say if anyone is still complaining about their connectivity in 2016 then they really need to look at their provision. We moved away from the SEGFL 7 years ago now and its one of the best things I ever did.

 

That really depends on where you are. Some areas still suffer with terrible provision or high costs.

[Cache]

Should be about 7k these days for a 100mbit leased line through BT. Prices have dropped through the floor over the last 2 years.

 

I'd say if anyone is still complaining about their connectivity in 2016 then they really need to look at their provision. We moved away from the SEGFL 7 years ago now and its one of the best things I ever did.

 

 

 

As @localzuk says, depends where you are.

 

£20k + the ECC's for the install which would be considerable is what we would be looking at for a 100mb leased line, quoted by 4 companies in the last 6 months.

[sted]

That really depends on where you are. Some areas still suffer with terrible provision or high costs.

i know of several schools that if they left their lea internet they couldnt get more than 2-3 mb adsl and without spending ludicrous money cant get a leased line and these are places in west yorkshire hardly back of beyond

[CyberNerd]

If the end-user side of an app hasn't been designed to run over a 'high' latency, lossy, slow connections, then it is not a 'Cloud' app, even if the server is running on AWS/Azure/GoogelAppEngine.

 

Just want to point out some specifics: AppEngine is Different from Compute Engine.

All AppEngine apps are designed to be cloud based, written in python,Java,go,php etc. they sit on a cloud system that increases as the load does.

Container Engine is similar but runs write once run anywhere Docker apps. Compute Engine is virtual servers that you have more control over, but are essentially servers that you pay for by the minute rather than buy the hardware. On a side note: IBM sold their desktop sector to Lenovo right before the market dropped out, now they sold their server sector - I think this says something about the server market! SQL engine and Bigtable are database apps that can be used to power Appengine,ComputeEngine or Container apps. Google Cloud isn't just virtual servers.

[DavePa]

Having dropped out of the webcast yesterday due to having no sound I thought I'd ask my supplier what the options were, this is the reply:

 

Your OVS expires in July and has another year to run, You are currently on Level F pricing.

 

We can either renew the agreement with the level F pricing for another year, when next year comes round you will have to start a new agreement with the latest Microsoft pricing which is set to rise after July this year. Or we can start a new 3 year agreement on level E pricing now, this way you know what pricing you will be paying for the next 3 years.

 

So, do I restart on level E now or stick with level F for another year and then start a new 3 year agreement?

[localzuk]

Just want to point out some specifics: AppEngine is Different from Compute Engine.

All AppEngine apps are designed to be cloud based, written in python,Java,go,php etc. they sit on a cloud system that increases as the load does.

Container Engine is similar but runs write once run anywhere Docker apps. Compute Engine is virtual servers that you have more control over, but are essentially servers that you pay for by the minute rather than buy the hardware. On a side note: IBM sold their desktop sector to Lenovo right before the market dropped out, now they sold their server sector - I think this says something about the server market! SQL engine and Bigtable are database apps that can be used to power Appengine,ComputeEngine or Container apps. Google Cloud isn't just virtual servers.

 

The first is SaaS.

Container is PaaS.

Compute is IaaS.

 

All are cloud, and things hosted in them are all cloud also.

[CyberNerd]

The first is SaaS.

Container is PaaS.

Compute is IaaS.

 

All are cloud, and things hosted in them are all cloud also.

 

Yes that pretty much sums it up. I'd argue AppEngine is PaaS but the apps you write are SaaS. The point was that you'd be hard pressed to write something in AppEngine/Container Engine that hasn't been designed for 'cloud' whereas any idiot can stick something in Azure/Compute Engine and complain it runs badly.

[jmak]

Having dropped out of the webcast yesterday due to having no sound I thought I'd ask my supplier what the options were, this is the reply:

 

Your OVS expires in July and has another year to run, You are currently on Level F pricing.

 

We can either renew the agreement with the level F pricing for another year, when next year comes round you will have to start a new agreement with the latest Microsoft pricing which is set to rise after July this year. Or we can start a new 3 year agreement on level E pricing now, this way you know what pricing you will be paying for the next 3 years.

 

So, do I restart on level E now or stick with level F for another year and then start a new 3 year agreement?

The outcome from the call was that as long as you are an existing customer and maintain a subscription, you will be entitled to buy agreements at the same level of discount you get now until July 2018. The underlying price will go up as normal. You should use a mix of 1 and 3 year subscriptions to get as near as you can to renewing for 3 years starting in July 2018 which potentially covers you until 2021.

[Ephelyon]

You might just reduce that to X should be used where it offers some benefit. It might be functionality OR cost OR it might even be some other constraint - perhaps staff skills, external support or just the supply of a product (this thread arises basically because M$ will start to motivate us using several of those constraints to push us along the path they want us to take).

 

I do agree with that in principle, but the reason I say both on this occasion is that I don't think it's a good idea to move to the cloud if you find that it is indeed cheaper (which it will be for some) but doesn't actually add to what you can already do. It's a big change and I would personally say you should be moving to the cloud because it offers you functionality you don't already have, and if it can save you money too then obviously that's great. But I wouldn't move to the cloud just because it was cheaper (unless it was massively so) because of the other risks and disadvantages it can bring, which are sidelined too often.

 

At the end of the day, your Internet bandwidth is supposed to be used for Internet access - I don't see how it's efficient to start using bits of it to handle traffic that could be zipping around your internal network perfectly fine. That capacity should be going on cat videos, not print spooling!

 

(Just on that point, I agree with @psydii about file storage. It's not necessarily the case that the document you're printing will itself be in the cloud, which raises the whole print server issue again.)

[nathan]

Should be about 7k these days for a 100mbit leased line through BT. Prices have dropped through the floor over the last 2 years.

 

I'd say if anyone is still complaining about their connectivity in 2016 then they really need to look at their provision. We moved away from the SEGFL 7 years ago now and its one of the best things I ever did.

 

£4600 on a 5 year contract in a Zone 0 here

[CyberNerd]

I do agree with that in principle, but the reason I say both on this occasion is that I don't think it's a good idea to move to the cloud if you find that it is indeed cheaper (which it will be for some) but doesn't actually add to what you can already do. It's a big change and I would personally say you should be moving to the cloud because it offers you functionality you don't already have, and if it can save you money too then obviously that's great. But I wouldn't move to the cloud just because it was cheaper (unless it was massively so) because of the other risks and disadvantages it can bring, which are sidelined too often.

 

There will always be other advantages. Some companies move to the cloud because disaster recovery plans, others because the security is better than it is in house.

You need to weigh it up. Clearly it isn't right for most people now - but don't discount the facts and trends in the market: MS prices are Increasing. Broadband prices are decreasing. Cloud server prices are decreasing. It's only a matter of time before it makes sense.

[gshaw]

There will always be other advantages. Some companies move to the cloud because disaster recovery plans, others because the security is better than it is in house.

You need to weigh it up. Clearly it isn't right for most people now - but don't discount the facts and trends in the market: MS prices are Increasing. Broadband prices are decreasing. Cloud server prices are decreasing. It's only a matter of time before it makes sense.

 

The danger for MS is that in their rush to try and force people off their on-prem servers is that the migration may as well end up being to a non-MS product instead. If they're not careful could be a repeat of the Windows 8 debacle but this time hitting their server product market share rather than desktop, in education at least (not sure if they'll try the same licensing changes in the wider market or if education is an experiment to see what happens).